As the legalization of edible cannabis approaches in Canada, the industry has yet to solve one of its greatest challenges: packaging.

Since October 17, cannabis companies have been plagued with problems associated with packaging.

Apart from the fact that cannabis packages are really boring (thanks, Health Canada), they are also an environmental disaster.

One customer reported receiving two plastic containers, two cardboard boxes, a brown paper bag and a plastic casing, all for just four grams of weed.

And much of that packaging couldn’t be recycled until Tweed and TerraCycle teamed up to create a national recycling program earlier this year. But until then, recreational cannabis users didn’t really have any way of disposing of the packaging other than throwing it in the trash.

And, in the very early days of legalization, there just wasn’t enough compliant packaging to satisfy Canadians’ hunger for legal weed. That led to valuable product sitting in warehouses as provincial governments capped retail licenses and cut operating hours of publically run dispensaries.

But some innovative companies are offering solutions to this packaging disaster. Among them, Noah Shopsowitz, son of the late Sam Shopsowitz of the Toronto-based Shopsy’s Delicatessen empire.

Shopsowitz is currently shopping his child-resistant, smell-proof and 100 percent recyclable containers around to angel investors under the company name Weedlocka.

“Because the federal government had an express timeline in terms of the rollout, companies went with low-hanging-fruit-type solutions,” he says.

“Nobody really gave much thought in terms of innovation, in terms of the full capability of packaging.”

Shopsowitz, who has a history of innovation, including a U.S. patent for a “human free-flight launcher”, says his products would be made out of high-density polyethylene, which is easily recyclable. That material is partly what would give his containers their smell-proof trait, he says.

While he has yet to produce an inventory, Shopsowitz says he is piloting a non-child-resistant product at shops in Toronto.

CannaSystems is also preparing for the edibles market and an expected enthusiasm among consumers for cannabis-infused drinks. It’s “Can’t Top”, a cap for beverage cans, promises to be child-resistant. Photo: Cannasupplies

Meanwhile, PharmaSystems subsidiary CannaSupplies has been in the cannabis container business for more than five years and it is already supplying Canadian producers with child-resistant, Health Canada-compliant products.

Nearly all of its containers can be made using 25 to 100 percent recycled materials, and it’s set to come out with a plant-based plastic container with child-resistant lid — made out of hemp, of course.

CannaSystems is also preparing for the edibles market and an expected enthusiasm among consumers for cannabis-infused drinks. It’s “Can’t Top”, a cap for beverage cans, promises to be child-resistant.